Common Drum/Beat Patterns Part 1of 2 Today Iʼm going to show you the common Beat structures that you will find in 95% of songs. Just as I explained in the composition module about the common chord structures that you find in most popular music, its the same with Beats. Iʼve prepared about 20 of the most common beats that you can find and Iʼm going to show you how they work, how they feel and really how simple it is at the end of the day. Then Iʼm going to show you how you can apply them in your music. BEAT 1 - Iʼm going to start with a very basic and the most simple beat that is so common today and you can find this beat in tons of songs. Its usually the very first beat that you learn when you learn how to play drums.
That is the most basic and foundational beat that you will find but that does not make it less important and that does not make it not as powerful as some of the more complex beats. If you listen to it you may recognize it. Its in thousands of songs, Billy Jean by Michael Jackson is just one you may recognize. If you look at the Matrix Display on Logic Pro X and all DAWs have a display like this. This is the kick The kick is represented by these notes Bar 1 Bar 2 This is the snare The snare is represented by these notes
This is the Hi-Hat Music Programming The Kick is on beat 1, so for bar 1 its Kick-snare-kick-snare, and bar 2: Kick-snare-kick-snare. I used an acoustic kit here. Then I copied that beat to another channel On this channel I have an Electronic kit. Its a totally different sounding kit. Its got the same effect, Kick-snarekick-snare. Whats nice about this beat is that its like a metronome and its great for syncopated beats, it keeps the tempo rolling on. If you listen to it you will notice how different the same beat sounds on an electronic kit. There are no rules about which sounds should play these beats. These beats are common across all styles of music. You can find this beat in country music, Hip-hop and Rock & Roll. We also tried this beat at 120bpm and it works.
BEAT 2 The difference with this beat is that it has 16 Hi-Hats. As compared to the previous beat which has 8 Hi-Hats in every bar. Bar 1 So the 2nd beat patternʼs Hi-Hat is in double time, building on the foundational beat.
Then I played exactly the same beat on an Electronic Drum Kit. It still has that busy feel to it but sounds completely different. The same beat at 120bpm still works even though the Hi-Hat is becoming a bit frantic. BEAT 3 If we mute the High-Hats and listen to just the Kick and snare we find that its exactly the same as the first 2 beat patterns.
So whats changes here? If you count the High-Hats you will find 12 per bar. So the first beat had 8 High-hats, thats 8thʼs. The second beat we doubled it so that becomes 16thʼs and this one has 12 high-hats, its in the middle. If you remember, in the composition module when we spoke about Time Signature, 8thʼs and 16thʼs fit into a 4/4 time signature but 12 High-hats per bar would be called a 12/8 time signature. So theres actually 3 High-Hats per beat. Bar 1 Beat 1 Beat 2 Beat 3 Beat 4 We count that as 1-&-a 2-&-a 3-&a 4-&-a. So its the same beat, different High-Hat, different time signature and sounds different. This is great for Soul, R&B, Jazz, Blues and many styles of music would use a 12/8 time signature like this.
BEAT 4 If you look at the Matrix display you will notice that the Kick and Snare are different. This beat is not static like the other one, it doesnʼt go: 1, 2, 3, 4. It goes 1, 2,... 3-4. The Kick starts on beat 1, the Snare on beat 2 and on beat 3 where the previous Kick was theres nothing. Its coming late, on the & followed by the Snare on beat 4. Let me just tell you something, 95% of the time in music and beat the snare will be on 2 or 4. There are exceptions to the rule which Iʼll show you later. Most of the time whats really changing in these beats is the Kick Drum - where does the Kick Drum sit and how is it interacting with the snare? Whats really happening is that its almost like a question/ answer scenario where the Kick is saying something and the Snare is answering. This is a common beat thats in thousands and thousands of hit songs. You canʼt go wrong with this beat. When in doubt use this beat. Its that simple.
BEAT 5 This is almost like a combination of the 1st beat and the previous one. The Kick starts on beat 1. Snare is on beat 2 and 4, as I said 95% of the time its like that. Notice that in the first beat I showed you the Kick was on beat 1 and 3. In the previous beat it was on beat 1 and on the & of beat 3, but nothing on the beginning of beat 3 itself. Now we have both. This is very common in Rock and even Hip-Hop when you slow it down to about 90 or 85bpm. That gives it a totally different feel. Tempo is such an important part of composing music, programming and producing.
BEAT 6 Again, this a combination of the other beats. Notice that theres no gap now between the Snare. The Snare is on 2 and 4. All the other beats we had started with a Kick on Beat 1 and then it waited for the snare. This one has 2 Kicks before the Snare and the ending is just like one of the beats weʼve done already. BEAT 7 When it comes to High-Hats there really are no rules. We could make these High-Hats into 16thʼs. We could also speed the 8th High-Hats up to about 135bpm but with 16thʼs at 135bpm it sounds too busy, it kills the
However, at 80bpm the 16thʼs work. So Iʼm not fundamentally changing the Kick and Snare, they stay the same. The beat works at all tempos. It will work with Electronic or Acoustic Drums. Its just about using your ear, your intuition and making wise choices. BEAT 8 This beat has a bit of a swing to it. Youʼll notice that in all the previous beats the Kick and the Snare were sitting on 8thʼs. 1 e & a This is the first beat where the Kick is on the a - the push just before the next beat which is the snare.
That creates a push for the snare. Theyʼre very close together and this gives a totally different kind of feel. It almost feels like its swinging but its not. Technically, if you look at it in half-time it is swinging but in real time its not a swing. A swing like this is emphasizing a 16th so the mind will think in the 16th. A beat like this will work better at a slower tempo because the push feels uncomfortable at a fast tempo. Iʼm not saying that its wrong but Iʼm saying that its difficult to make it work. These are little nuances that make a difference when it comes to beat. Some things work and some things donʼt. You need to familiarize yourself with these beats and you need to have them stored in the back of your mind. You might have a song, a bass line, a melody or a chord structure and then you need to think of what beat is going to work with that. Youʼve got to have an arsenal of beats in your mind that you can bring to the party so to speak, so that you can bring the right beat at the right time into the song. That is a critical part of being a producer. When youʼre programming you need to know which beats are going to work with which bass lines and which melodies and part of that decision is the tempo.
BEAT 9 This sounds very similar to the one before. All this beat has is that extra note. This is another awesome and very common beat. If you start to listen to the beat of songs which is mainly the Kick and the Snare you will start to notice these common beats time and again in song after song. BEAT 10 Its a bit of a complicated beat. It sounds very busy.
This beat also works at a faster tempo of 120bpm. This works nicely for kind of modern Rock track. It depends on what you do with the guitars and the bass and the vocals but this could be an awesome foundation for a song. I donʼt think it would work very well for a club track because if you had to use an Electronic Kick Drum going so busy it might be distracting and too much. Having said that, try it out, see if it works. At the end of the day music is not a bunch of rules, its just a bunch of suggestions. Try things out and what sounds good - do it. If it doesnʼt sound good do something else, youʼve got so many choices. BEAT 11 This is like a Punk beat.
The first thing you will notice is that the Snare is not just on 2 and 4 as in all the beats that Iʼve shown you up to now. 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a Here we have a Snare on &. We also have a very busy Bass/Kick Drum. This is not only a Punk beat because I have heard Folk music and Country music with this beat before. There are no rules about what beats have to go with which styles. There are multiple styles and multiple beats and they almost all work together. This is why these days I hear Hip-Hop beat influences coming into Rock and Country music because you canʼt tame music, you canʼt put it in a box. What works in one style will almost definitely work in another and half the time they do share these things and they donʼt even realize it. This is an exception to the rule as far as the Snare is concerned.
If you really want to analyze it I could argue that this is actually a double-time beat. You could look at this in a different way and say that & is actually 2. I did an experiment by slowing the tempo to 55bpm but doubled the High-Hats to 16thʼs to give the perception of the same tempo If you listen to that you will recognize that its one of the beats I showed you earlier. So whats really happening there is that even thought the Snare is coming on the & what youʼre really hearing is a beat thats been doubled in speed and then it sounds completely different. So I could argue and say that fundamentally the Snare Is actually hitting in 2 and 4 its just that weʼve doubled up in time now the 2 is gone onto the &. If I take out the extra High-Hats and put the tempo back to 110bpm its hard to believe thats the same beat but its exactly the same beat with the same fundamentals.
When you start to analyze whats going on in beats you start to find these patterns all the time. You start to realize that music has a lot of formulas and themes that keep repeating themselves. When you start to understand these themes it gets easier to work with music and youʼll start to notice things that are wrong very quickly because you know what to expect. Copyright 2013 by David Campos No part of this ebook or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, or used in any way whatsoever without the prior written consent of the author. All rights reserved.